Myanmar has improved six spots from the year earlier to stand at 130 at the annual Corruption Perceptions Index 2017 released by Transparency International, which globally takes initiative on the fight against corruption by working together with governments, businesses and citizens to halt the abuse of power, bribery and secret deals.
Getting a score of 30, Myanmar shares the ranking of 130 along with other four countries – Gambia, Iran, Sierra Leone and Ukraine. The index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption based on the information from experts and businesspeople, uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
Among ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, Singapore representing the Asia Pacific region comes in at 6 earning the matching score of 84 with Sweden which is contained in the Europe and Central Asia region. Myanmar’s immediate neighbour Thailand finds itself at 96 together with a group of six countries including regional neighbour Indonesia, while another ASEAN country Vietnam comes in at 107 with a score of 35. At the 2017 indicator, New Zealand and Denmark takes place at first and second with highest scores of 89 and 88 respectively, followed by Finland, Norway and Switzerland at third with the same score of 85. Syria, South Sudan and Somalia rank lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9 respectively.
The best performing region is Western Europe with an average score of 66. The worst performing regions are SubSaharan Africa with average score of 32, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia with average score of 34. This year’s Corruption Perceptions Index found that more than two-thirds of countries score below 50, with an average score of 43, highlighting that the majority of countries are making little or no progress in ending corruption if compared to recent years. Further analysis demonstrates journalists and activists in corrupt countries risk their lives every day in an effort to speak out, Transparency International said. Myanmar was ranked 147 with a score of 22 in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2015, and 156 with a score of 21 in the 2014 index.
